Hand

"hand; side; border; alongside; hand-measure; portion; arm (rest); monument; manhood (male sex organ); power; rule." This word has cognates in most of the other Semitic languages. Biblical Hebrew attests it about 1,618 times and in every period.

The primary sense of this word is "hand": "And the Lord God said, Behold, the man is become as one of us, to know good and evil: and now, lest he put forth his hand, and take also of the tree of life…" (Gen 3:22, the first biblical occurrence). Sometimes the word is used in conjunction with an object that can be grasped by the "hand": "And if he smite him with throwing a stone [literally, "hand stone"]…" (Num 35:17). In a similar usage, the word means "human": "…He shall also stand up against the Prince of princes; but he shall be broken without hand [i.e., human agency]" (Dan 8:25; cf. Job 34:20).

In Isa 49:2, "hand" is used of God; God tells Moses that He will put His "hand" over the mouth of the cave and protect him. This is a figure of speech, an anthropomorphism, by which God promises His protection. God's "hand" is another term for God's "power" (cf. Jer 16:21). The phrase "between your hands" may mean "upon your chest": "And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands [upon your chest]" (Zech 13:6).

Yad is employed in several other noteworthy phrases. The "lifting of the hand" may be involved in "taking an oath" (Gen 14:22). "Shaking" [literally, "giving one's hand"] is another oath-taking gesture (cf. Prov 11:21). For "one's hands to be on another" (Gen 37:27) or "laid upon another" (Exod 7:4) is to do harm to someone. "Placing one's hands with" signifies "making common cause with someone" (Exod 23:1). If one's hand does not "reach" something, he is "unable to pay" for it (Lev 5:7, rsv). When one's countryman is "unable to stretch out his hand to you," he is not able to support himself (Lev 25:35).

"Putting one's hand on one's mouth" is a gesture of silence (Prov 30:32). "Placing one's hands under someone" means submitting to him (1Chron 29:24). "Giving something into one's hand" is entrusting it to him (Gen 42:37).

A second major group of passages uses yad to represent the location and uses of the hand. First, the word can mean "side," where the hand is located: "And Absalom rose up early and stood beside the way of the gate…" (2Sam 15:2). in 2Chr 21:16, the word means "border": "Moreover the Lord stirred up against Jehoram the spirit of the Philistines, and of the Arabians, that were near [literally, "by the hand of"] the Ethiopians." A similar use in Exod 25 applies this word to the "banks" of the Nile River: "And the daughter of Pharaoh came down to wash herself at the river; and her maidens walked along by the [Nile]…." In this sense, yad can represent "length and breadth." In Gen 34:21 we read that the land was (literally) "broad of hands": "These men are peaceable with us; therefore let them dwell in the land, and trade therein; for the land, behold, it is large enough for them…." Second, since the hand can receive only a part or fraction of something, the word can signify a "part" or "fraction": "And he took and sent [portions] unto them from before him: but Benjamin's [portion] was five times so much as any of theirs" (Gen 43:34).

Third, yad comes to mean that which upholds something, a "support" (1Kings 7:35ff.) or an "arm rest" (1Kings 10:19). Fourth, since a hand may be held up as a "sign," yad can signify a "monument" or "stele": "…Saul came to Carmel, and, behold, he set him up a place [monument], and is gone about, and passed on, and gone down to Gilgal" (1Sam 15:12). Fifth, yad sometimes represents the "male sex organ": "…And art gone up; thou hast enlarged thy bed, and made thee a covenant with them; thou lovest their bed where thou sawest it [you have looked on their manhood]" (Isa 57:8; cf. v. Isa 57:10; Isa 6:2; Isa 7:20).

In several passages, yad is used in the sense of "power" or "rule": "And David smote Hadarezer king of Zobah unto Hamath, as he went to stablish his dominion by the river Euphrates" (1Chron 18:3). "To be delivered into one's hands" means to be "given into one's power": "God hath delivered him into mine hand; for he is shut in, by entering into a town that hath gates and bars" (1Sam 23:7; cf. Prov 18:21).

"To fill someone's hand" may be a technical term for "installing him" in office: "And thou shalt put them upon Aaron thy brother, and his sons with him; and shalt anoint them, and consecrate them [literally, "fill their hands"], and sanctify them, that they may minister unto me in the priest's office" (Exod 28:41).

Yad is frequently joined to the preposition b(e) and other prepositions as an extension; there is no change in meaning, only a longer form: "For what have I done or what evil is in mine hand" (1Sam 26:18).

"the hand" (cp. Eng., "chiropody"), is used, besides its ordinary significance, (a) in the idiomatic phrases, "by the hand of," "at the hand of," etc., to signify "by the agency of," Act 5:12, Act 7:35, Act 17:25, Act 14:3, Gal 3:19 (cp. Lev 26:46); Rev 19:2; (b) metaphorically, for the power of God, e.g., Luk 1:66, Luk 23:46, Joh 1:10-29, Act 11:21, Act 13:11, Heb 1:10, Heb 2:7, Heb 10:31; (c) by metonymy, for power, e.g., Mat 17:22, Luk 24:7, Joh 10:39, Act 12:11.